Currently playing as a Jewish ruler. My head of faith is defending against two wars - a claimant war for the Grand Theocracy of Israel, and a Catholic Crusade for the same title.

More than 390,000 Jewish troops have gathered for the Crusade. They all follow the war leader's army no matter what. Instead of defending against the crusade, the war leader goes off to fight the claimant.

390k troops follow him but they aren't allowed to join the fighting because they aren't in the claimant war. So they just sit around while he slowly loses a war on the aggressor's turf.

Meanwhile the Crusaders show up and conquer Israel. They would have been outnumbered 2:1 by the defenders, except the defenders have no interest in actually defending Israel. They just want to follow the high priest around and contribute nothing while he fights a totally unrelated war.

I wish there was a button for the player to select an allied army, no matter who the war leader is, and make them follow you.

I'm on my fifth playthrough of the game, 597 hours in total. The first four playthroughs were as various Pagan and Muslim faiths. I never once saw anything about a heresy appear in game.

This time around I decided to start as a Catholic and establish a new Christian faith. I've already been given two separate prompts asking me if I want to convert to the Cathar heresy, and then later my new Christian faith was declared a heresy and about six random rulers throughout Europe decided to convert to my faith without any input from me.

Seems like heresies are a big deal when you start as a European Catholic but I had no idea they even existed before this. I tried reading up on it and it seems like heresies occur when Fervor is too low.

Does anyone know if heresies can occur in other religions? I usually don't pay close attention to Fervor, so I'm not sure if it's a Christian-exclusive mechanic, or if Catholicism just happens to be one of the only faiths with such a swingy Fervor score.

I'm absolutely loving CK3 and wondering if anyone can recommend something similar for me.

I'm looking for games with personal character-based role-playing, where you can influence and customize your culture, religion and government. I like light-to-moderate strategy elements, but I'm more interested in the world-building and immersion. I don't mind whether it's a historical setting or not.

Looking forward to hearing your favorite recommendations! Thanks in advance!